Favourite Wedding Moments | The Boys

One thing that I like about documentary wedding photography is that it freezes things in a time and a place. For example, a lot of people agree that no matter what you wear to a wedding, how you style your hair, whatever accessories you choose – the time will come (sooner or later) when your photographs are unmistakably of a time and place. That is a major part of the charm of course and one principle of my photographic approach is to create images that will spark memories of the day when you look at them many decades from now.

There’s usually a distinct difference in the approach to the day between the boys and the girls. The bride will have usually spent many months or years preparing for The Day. Every detail is agonised over and every preparation made for the wedding. Makeup and hair is trialled and tested. Usually many dresses are tried on and accessories chosen with great care.

With the boys however, things are usually different. The lads tend to get ready in minutes and usually wear what they’ve been told to :) One groom (I swear this is a true story) popped in to the shops on the way to the wedding venue to buy a shirt.

It’s always lovely to see a bit of each others morning. The preparation time for the wedding disappears quickly as the ceremony looms near and it’s easy to forget all about the morning when the wedding day is long gone.

I photographed this image at the Hilton Hotel in Reading during the preparations for Claire and Simon’s wedding at Ufton Court. The bride and groom were getting ready in separate rooms on the day and I spend some time photographing each of them along with the bridesmaids and the ushers in attendance.

I like this photograph because it (and I mean this affectionately) typifies the typical grooms approach to the day. It’s time for Simon and the boys to don the cravats and head off to the wedding. Of course, no one knows how to tie a cravat, nobody thought to have a practice ahead of time so the only thing to do of course is to Google the subject and follow along on Youtube. I know in years to come, bewildered children will wonder at the antique iPhone they’re using.

All went well, however. There was a comedy moment or two, confusing the lefts and the rights but all was well in the end and everyone looked great and, dare I say it, dashing.